Resistance against Koodankulam nuclear plant: Intrepid women vs Goliath

If you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country.” 

—Jawaharlal Nehru, speaking to villagers who were to be displaced by the Hirakud Dam, 1948 (as quoted in For the Greater Common Good, by Arundhati Roy, Outlook magazine, May 24,1999)
 
June 2013 

The board is simple and stark, mounted on wooden sticks, predominantly white with a red border and a small square in the centre with the number 677 scrawled on it in black chalk. Today is the 677th day of the protest. The date — June 22, 2013 — is neatly positioned on the upper right side of the board. In terms of strategy, a board like this serves a dual purpose—it has immediate recall value, reminding everyone, especially visitors, of the continuing suffering and hardship faced by those sitting on such a long protest; and it motivates those on the ground, marking off each day as a strike (real and symbolic) against a much more powerful opponent. Because to be forgotten, to be eclipsed from public memory (unarguably short), to be left to fight alone is the hardest battle of all. Especially when the dice is heavily loaded in your opponent’s favour. 
Remarkably however, this is not something that perturbs anyone in Idinthakarai. 

In the entire ‘staging area’ of the movement — from the vast sandy floors of the pandal or temporary shelter covered with a canopy of bamboo sticks, right up to the entrance of the Lourdes church which also contains a small shrine to the martyrs of the movement and numerous posters of nuclear disasters — it is the women of Idinthakarai who dominate and draw you in immediately. They sit in little groups of seven or eight, some knitting, others chatting, the older ones stretched out and sleeping in sunny corners on the sand or on the cool tiles of the vast quadrangle or foyer of the church. 

Since there is no fixed time of arrival, there is no head count either; an average of 50 women take part in the daily relay protest. 

They finish their household chores, cook for their families, and head towards the protest site every day around 10.30 am. Their next meal will be eaten only after they return home after 4.30 pm. 

On the 677th day of the protest, I approach the first cluster of women sitting around an indigenous board game called Thaiyyam — a wooden board with chalk markings, dice, and small pieces of plastic that function as counters — and begin the first of many triangular conversations, with local translator Amal Raj Leon as interpreter. Curiosity weans them away from the game and they are ready to discuss nuclear power and sedition. 

As I listen to them over the course of the first day (and in the days and months to come), I realise these are no ordinary, uneducated village women sitting in protest because someone — a leader, a husband, a priest—has told them to; they are following the dictates of their individual and collective conscience. They will sit and they will protest and they will endure as long as they need to, armed with nothing more than a unique combination of acquired knowledge and homespun wisdom, a mix that serves them well in the decision-making process. 

Snub-nosed and stocky, 38-year-old Sundari is sitting unobtrusively in a corner, speaking on her mobile phone. The transformation into fiery leader, her voice changing, her eyes flashing in righteous anger, is so instantaneous it takes me totally by surprise. 

“All we want is that the plant should not be there. The government sets up the plant but if it’s not safe it is we who have to face the consequences. Even when we go and buy a TV we get a guarantee, so similarly, why not here? If in the future there is some problem with the plant then who will take care of us? The government does not answer such a basic question. How can we trust that it is safe?” she says, her voice rising. 

Before I can react she continues: “We asked them (Nuclear Power Corporation of India, NPCIL, the nodal body that operates all nuclear power plants in the country) what they would do with the (radioactive) waste from the plant. They first said they would let it into the sea; then they said they would bury it. If they let it into the sea, we cannot survive as fishing is our livelihood; if they bury it, the radiation will spread to all the crops and grain, so even agriculture will be affected. And nature is unpredictable; whatever scientists may say, you never know when there could be a disaster like the 2004 tsunami. We are not against producing electricity; we need it, but not in such a way that it destroys people’s lives.” 

Sundari has summed up the position of the protestors in a few, short sentences. The Class 8-educated beedi and pickle-maker, mother of two young children, has spent 98 days in jail on 78 charges including sedition. She recites the list nonchalantly: “...Breaking the glass of the police van, making country bombs, talking derogatorily about the chief minister and prime minister, propagating violence, being a traitor to the nation...” 

I ask Sundari why she — and so many other women — has chosen the difficult path of protest with no discernible outcome in sight. She does not even have to think about her answer. “People have to live. I am privileged to fight for a cause which will allow people to live. I don’t have any fear, I have god with me. Only if you fight you learn about the community. What is the use of sitting at home? I have learnt so much about women, their problems, even when I was in jail. My relatives don’t want to mingle with us as they feel my husband has not ‘controlled’ me. But we still emphasise protest as a method because we want to make sure our children live happy lives. If we struggle now, we can be happy in the future.”  

Extracted from The Ant in the Ear of the Elephant: The story of the people’s struggle against the Koodankulam nuclear plant by Minnie Vaid; Rajpal and Sons